Critical incident management Version 13.0 Border Force, Immigration Enforcement and UK Visas and Immigration Page 1 of 41 Published for Home Office staff on 25 August 2021 Contents Contents ..................................................................................................................... 2 About this guidance .................................................................................................... 5 Contacts ................................................................................................................. 5 Publication .............................................................................................................. 5 Changes from last version of this guidance ............................................................ 5 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 6 Definition of a critical incident ..................................................................................... 7 Local critical incident ............................................................................................... 7 Immigration Enforcement, UKVI or Border Force national critical incident ............. 7 Cross Borders, Immigration and Citizenship (BICs) national critical incident .......... 7 What is a critical incident ........................................................................................ 7 Common objectives ................................................................................................ 8 Business continuity management ........................................................................... 9 Critical Incident Response ...................................................................................... 9 Local critical incident ........................................................................................... 9 National critical incident ...................................................................................... 9 Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme (JESIP) ....................... 10 The command structure ........................................................................................ 10 Gold Commander .............................................................................................. 10 Silver Commander ............................................................................................ 11 Bronze Commander .......................................................................................... 11 Strategic Reference Group ............................................................................... 12 Critical incident stages .......................................................................................... 12 Planning for a critical incident............................................................................ 12 Recognising, declaring and managing a critical incident .......................................... 14 Managing a critical incident through the command structure ................................ 14 First steps ......................................................................................................... 14 The role of BF and IE/UKVI NCC(U) ................................................................. 15 All incidents ................................................................................................... 15 Local incidents ............................................................................................... 15 Escalating and national incidents .................................................................. 15 The Golden Hour .................................................................................................. 16 Decision logs and loggists .................................................................................... 16 Page 2 of 41 Published for Home Office staff on 25 August 2021 Advisors ................................................................................................................ 16 Independent oversight: mandatory referrals ......................................................... 16 Investigating an incident ....................................................................................... 17 Categories of incidents which should be referred to the IOPC / PIRC / PONI ... 18 Joint police and Home Office activity ................................................................ 18 Sole Home Office activity when police assistance is requested ........................ 19 Acting as first responder: death or serious injury .............................................. 19 Cross departmental support ................................................................................. 19 Return to normality ................................................................................................... 20 Non-Conferral Orders ........................................................................................... 20 Debrief and recovery ............................................................................................ 20 Support services for those involved in an incident ................................................ 20 Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) .................................................................... 21 Mental Health First Aider (MHFA) ..................................................................... 21 Legal advice ...................................................................................................... 21 Complaints ............................................................................................................... 22 Further information and training ............................................................................... 23 Escalation process for critical incidents .................................................................... 24 Example of national critical incidents........................................................................ 25 METHANE method ................................................................................................... 26 Joint Decision Model ................................................................................................ 27 Gold, Silver and Bronze Commander checklists, including COBR information ........ 28 Generic checklists for commanders ...................................................................... 28 Gold Commander .............................................................................................. 28 Silver Commander ............................................................................................ 29 Considering tactical deployments – aide memoire ........................................ 30 Tactical deployment aide memoire ............................................................ 30 Bronze Commander .......................................................................................... 31 Critical Incident Notification ...................................................................................... 32 The Golden Hour aide memoire ............................................................................... 33 Specified enforcement functions .............................................................................. 34 Mandatory referrals to the IOPC: definitions ............................................................ 35 Incidents resulting in any of the below criteria, will need to be referred to the Independent Office for Police Complaints (IOPC)................................................. 35 Death or serious injury .......................................................................................... 35 Serious assault ..................................................................................................... 35 Page 3 of 41 Published for Home Office staff on 25 August 2021 Serious sexual offences ........................................................................................ 35 Serious corruption................................................................................................. 35 Criminal offences aggravated by discriminatory behaviour ................................... 36 Lessons learned/debrief template ............................................................................ 37 Debrief model ........................................................................................................... 38 Glossary of terms ..................................................................................................... 39 Useful contacts: ........................................................................................................ 40 Page 4 of 41 Published for Home Office staff on 25 August 2021 About this guidance This guidance sets out the Immigration Enforcement (IE), UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) and Border Force (BF) policy for critical incident management. The purpose of this guidance is to ensure that in the event of a critical incident occurring, there is a clear system in place for all officers to follow to ensure that the incident is managed appropriately and in a consistent manner. Contacts If you have any questions about the guidance and your line manager or Head of Unit cannot help you or you think that the guidance has factual errors then please email IE National Command and Control Unit or Border Force National Command Centre UKVI Critical Incident Management Hub. If you notice any formatting errors in this guidance (broken links,